Attachment Style Compatibility

Attachment style compatibility is how two people's patterns of seeking closeness and handling distance fit together. The patterns come from attachment theory (Bowlby and Ainsworth), which Hazan and Shaver applied to adult love in 1987; the four adult styles usually named are secure, anxious, avoidant and fearful-avoidant, often called disorganized.

Attachment describes how people handle closeness, not how much they love. This site has no attachment quiz; the five love languages test answers a different question, which is how you give and receive affection.

What are the four attachment styles?

Researchers sort adult attachment by how a person sees themselves and how they see other people, a model Bartholomew and Horowitz set out in 1991. The four styles:

• Secure. Comfortable with closeness and comfortable with time apart. Asks for support and gives it easily.
• Anxious, also called preoccupied. Wants closeness and worries about losing it, so looks for reassurance, especially when a partner seems distant.
• Avoidant, also called dismissing. Values independence and feels uneasy depending on others or being depended on.
• Fearful-avoidant. Wants closeness and fears it at the same time, so may move toward a partner and then pull back.

These are patterns that describe a tendency, not fixed types, and a person can sit between two of them.

Is disorganized attachment the same as fearful-avoidant?

Close, but the two names started in different places. Researchers added "disorganized" as a category for infants in 1990. "Fearful" is the adult category in Bartholomew and Horowitz's four-style model. Popular writing now uses both names for the same adult pattern. Most studies of pairings, including the three-year study below, used only three adult styles and have no fourth.

Which attachment styles are compatible?

Attachment theory expects a secure partner to steady any pairing, and it rules no pairing out. The table separates what the theory expects from what a study actually found.

So which attachment styles are not compatible? None is ruled out; some pairings are simply harder to settle.

Why do anxious and avoidant partners pull apart?

Under stress, one partner moves closer and the other steps back, and each move makes the other's more likely. Attachment researchers describe the anxious partner reaching for reassurance when they sense distance. The avoidant partner, feeling crowded, looks for room. The distance raises the first partner's worry, and the reaching raises the second partner's need for space. Neither style is to blame. Each is a way of protecting yourself, and the two push on each other.

Can an anxious and avoidant relationship work?

It can last. Kirkpatrick and Davis followed 354 heterosexual dating couples for three years. Relationships between avoidant men and anxious women were "surprisingly stable", even though both partners had rated them less positively at the start. The same study found no anxious and anxious or avoidant and avoidant couples at all, so in that sample avoidant partners were never paired with each other. Lasting and feeling secure are not the same thing, and one study of dating couples cannot speak for your relationship.

What does a secure pairing look like?

Both partners can ask for closeness and give space without reading it as rejection. Disagreements happen, and they get repaired: someone reaches out, and the other responds. Researchers propose that a relationship like this can change people over time. In a 2018 review, Arriaga and colleagues suggest that a responsive partner can help an anxious person feel more confident, and help an avoidant person feel more at ease depending on someone. In theory, then, the best match for an anxious partner is a secure, responsive one, and security can grow inside a relationship rather than only being brought to it.

Can two anxious people be compatible?

They can be. Theory expects two people who seek reassurance at once, which can feel close and also tense when both need comfort on the same evening. The evidence is thin: in the 354-couple study, not one couple paired two anxious partners, so it says nothing about how such pairs fare.

Can attachment style change?

Yes, it can shift. Hazan and Shaver described a person's style as shaped in part by childhood relationships with parents, not fixed by them. Later researchers describe relationships that build security over time, as in the 2018 proposal above. Anyone who wants help with their own patterns can talk to a counsellor or psychologist.

How is attachment different from love languages and love styles?

Attachment is about closeness and distance: how you react when someone comes near or pulls away. A love language is about how affection is given and received day to day. A love style is about your attitude toward romantic love itself, which the love style test ranks. A 1988 study by Levy and Davis found that attachment and love styles overlap without being the same thing. Attachment is one part of compatibility in a relationship, and for a practical next step you can try a relationship compatibility questionnaire together.